1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an authentication technique of a program capable of accessing an IC card comprised by a mobile terminal.
2. Related Background of the Invention
Recently, as one of means for realizing ubiquitous computing, TRON (The Real-time Operating system Nucleus) is being developed. For a mobile terminal in which an IC (Integrated Circuit) card such as an e-TRON card is built-in, a technique has been proposed in which, when an electronic right value (hereinafter, referred to as an “electronic value”), such as an electronic ticket, is transmitted and received between terminals, transmission and reception of the electronic value is performed directly between both IC cards. As an example of a system in which such a technique has been applied to charging of the amount due of electronic value, an electronic value charge system assuring both high safety and simplicity is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-337887.
In order to realize such a system, a scheme has been proposed in which a built-in IC card in a mobile terminal and a program (hereinafter, referred to as a “terminal program”) also stored in the same mobile terminal perform transmission and reception of a message therebetween for cooperative operation. In such a scheme, a terminal program transmits a message to an IC card or another terminal program by giving a predetermined message to a library provided on a mobile terminal. A predetermined message is, for example, a source ID (src), a destination ID (dst), a message type (mtype), and message contents (param).
In the scheme mentioned above, a program (a handler) for notifying reception of a message is set in advance in the terminal program along with conditions of messages desired to be received. Due to this, the terminal program can receive a message with calling by the handler as a cue when a message in accordance with the above-mentioned conditions is received. Since a message can be transmitted from a remote terminal device via an external network such as a public line, an unauthorized remote message may be transmitted to the mobile terminal in some cases. However, if the terminal program sets the conditions mentioned above to reception of messages, it is possible to preclude unauthorized messages.